Commenting on the Totten piece that went from blog musing to WSJ Op-Ed, Sarge points out the salutary effects of the often-maligned US intervention in Latin America:
…despite all the issues the left has with the “Contras” it was because of their pressure that Nicaragua today is a Constitutional Republic. In all of Latin America, there is only one remaining dictatorship, that favorite of the left, Cuba. All the others became Democratic as a direct result of policies set in motion against the will (and, in some instances, the law) of the Liberal establishment.
So yes, there was a great deal of hand-wringing at the time over the Contras and the Allende business in Chile, but seen in the grand historical context, the US did push Latin America toward liberal democracy. In other words, we won the Cold War, and that’s been good for the whole world, even if some of the battles were messy. But that’s war, isn’t it?
The amount of handwringing over the Contras is something I’ll probably never understand. (The CIA’s actions there, however…)
But you can’t be serious about Allende. A country is plunged into civil war and a brutal, nearly 20-year dictatorship because a freely elected leftist government wants to nationalize industries? If that sort of thing is actionable, why didn’t we nuke British Labour back in the ’50’s?
Allende was a Communist.
Cite?
The most ‘communist’ of the Chilean left, groups like the Castro-associated MIR (Revolutionary Left Movement) were outside Allende’s Popular Union. The “Communist Party” of Chile was itself outside the UP, but was actually, according to some leftists, to the right of the UP — more along the lines of an Italian or French Eurocommunist party, willing to form coalitions w/ parties to its right.
But, the failure of Chilean democracy comes down (IMHO) to the fact that the major players, left, right, and center, had, hardened in their positions to the point that they were unwilling to form coallitions. With a political system which allowed minority governments to take power, Chile had to deal with a freely elected (but minority) government trying to implement its socialst/Marxist program in the face of a fractured but still powerful opposition.
In a boneheaded move, Allende even brought in members of the military into his Cabinet, in order to broaden the Government’s appeal without having to compromise policy positions to prospective coallition parties of the center. A previously nonpolitical military ended up being politicized by the UP itself. The UP also had problems with its left wing; leftist unions joined rightist professionals in work stoppages towards the end of the Allende government.
The ’73 midterm elections failed to produce the 2/3 majority a hastily constructed center-right anti-UP coalition needed to impeach Allende; the results actually showed a slight gain for the UP. Allende wanted to hold an extraconstitutional pleblicite on UP governance, but didn’t get the chance before an even more extraconstitutional coup occurred. (And let’s not even get into the level of US involvment in the coup.)
What would have happened without the coup? Leftists and rightists have their ideas; I’m really not sure. Allende was increasingly having trouble keeping the UP in line; would he have been capable of pursuing UP polcies in the second half of his term with an increasingly radical left and an opposition-controlled Congress? Would the center-right be able to effectively counter actions which came directly from the Executive branch? Would they have been able to mount an effective, unified Presidential campaign to unseat Allende when the next Presidential election rolled around? Was there any truth to the rumors spread by the right that leftists themselves were planning a coup, and that Pinochet’s coup was merely preemptive?
The American policy failure in Chile was allowing that clown Pinochet to stay for 15 years without holding elections. Same mistake they made in the Philippines with Marcos. In those days all some petty dictator had to do was label his opponents “communist” and he had carte blanche with the World Bank, IMF, USAID, CIA, et cetera.
Oh, well, anything goes, as long as some campaign donations come out of it. The only thing that matters is the next election. The long term consequences are for some future politician to deal with.